Former neo-Nazi activist selected as Tory candidate for Somerset council election

A former neo-Nazi activist with convictions including for harassing a Jewish MP has been selected as a Conservative candidate for a local election in Somerset.

Joshua Bonehill-Paine, the creator of the viral Crewkerne Gazette series of AI clips, is due to stand for election to Somerset council next year in a new Crewkerne South district. He told the Guardian he was an executive member of the Tories’ Yeovil branch, working as an events organiser.

“The branch and indeed party are fully aware of my past. Our chairman has been a vocal advocate and has supported me since I became a member of the party. I am very grateful for the support,” he said.

Bonehill-Paine, who previously described himself as a “nationalist, fascist, theorist and supporter of white rights”, re-emerged in recent years as the creator of the Crewkerne Gazette, a satirical online account that has gained a cult following.

While notably critical of Labour and Reform UK, its skits have cast the Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, in a favourable light.

Rebecca Harris, the Conservative chief whip, was criticised earlier this year for reposting one video in which Badenoch and the shadow justice secretary, Nick Timothy, were depicted as characters in the gangster film Scarface. This was after Bonehill-Paine had been revealed as the person behind the account.

Bonehill-Paine has a conviction for assaulting a police officer and burglary of a police station, and was convicted in 2014 of malicious communications over an anti-Islam hoax that led to death threats against the owners of a pub in Leicester.

He was jailed in 2015 for more than three years after posting “vile” antisemitic material online ahead of a planned neo-Nazi rally.

In 2016, he was found guilty of racially aggravated harassment for abuse directed at the then Labour MP Luciana Berger, who is Jewish, which included posting messages to his blog calling Berger a “rodent” and an “evil money-grabber”. He was also the founder and leader of the National British Resistance, a far-right group.

He told the Guardian on Monday that his criminal convictions had been spent and that he held various Home Office counter-extremism certifications. He said he had spoken alongside MPs where he talked about his past and highlighted antisemitism faced by Britain’s Jewish community.

However, the Conservative party’s opponents on the right were quick to accuse the Tory leader of hypocrisy and being weak on claims to oppose antisemitism.

A Reform UK spokesperson said: “Kemi claims the Tories have changed and they will have a new generation of candidates – it’s now clear what calibre of candidates they will be. Kemi claims to support the fight against antisemitism yet selects a convicted antisemite Nazi as a candidate. The hypocrisy is breathtaking.”

The selection of Bonehill-Paine comes as Badenoch is accused of freezing out centrist Tories. Last month it emerged that all prospective Tory MPs must align with her pledge to scrap the 2050 net zero target and leave the European convention on human rights.

At the weekend, a young Tory activist resigned as chair of the One Nation Conservative Network. Cody Butler claimed in a public letter that he no longer believed there was a home for one nation conservatism in the party.

Badenoch told the BBC last week that she led “a brand new party full of new people” after it emerged that the former cabinet minister Grant Shapps had been rejected as a Tory parliamentary candidate.

The Conservative party has been approached for comment.

The Guardian app has a tool to send tips about stories. Messages are end to end encrypted and concealed within the routine activity that every Guardian mobile app performs. This prevents an observer from knowing that you are communicating with us at all, let alone what is being said.

If you don’t already have the Guardian app, download it (iOS/Android) and go to the menu. Select ‘Secure Messaging’. When asked to choose a recipient please switch to the Journalists list and select Ben Quinn.

If you don’t need a high level of security or confidentiality you can email ben.quinn@theguardian.com.

Finally, our guide at theguardian.com/tips lists several ways to contact us securely, and discusses the pros and cons of each.

If you have something to share about this story, you can contact Ben using one of the following methods: